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You hear a child’s cry in the distance. With no time to think, you run towards the sound. As you get closer, you hear a child crying, “What did you do to my village?” As you look around you see the child is all alone in a world of confusion, conflicts, and chaos. You give your hand to the child to comfort her. She holds your hand. Then without you realizing it, a person comes behind you to hold your hand and more people come to hold hands to rebuild the crumbling village. We can all be heroes to children by providing them with safety, structure, support, and a sustainable lifestyle by making the village around them stronger. The question is: are you willing to help me build this village for our children?
You probably have heard the famous African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but you probably have not heard another proverb, “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it’s warmth.” We do not want children to grow up to destroy the world but to build it for future generations to come. In this paper, I will discuss how the village started to crumble. I will provide tools on how to support and guide the children, so we can bring out the best in them. We need to supply the parents and caregivers with the right tools and skills to build a village for the child through a holistic approach.
Additionally, I plan to approach this topic through my own experience as a mother, teacher, and community worker for both the youths and parents. I will also bring in studies from around the world that had a positive impact on the children. With this knowledge, we will know from where to start. I have taken many classes related to family issues and for over a decade I have applied what I have learned to many communities by having programs that will help build the village for the child. I have worked with these projects since 2007. The projects are: Mom and Toddler Club, Circle of Parents, after school and weekend programs, youth activity clubs, and so on. Having written two children’s books, doing presentations at schools and organizations, and having a heavy presence on social media by producing webcast videos, and sharing beneficial resources for parents and caregiver to utilize to build the village. These projects were conducted in full time/weekend schools and community centers.
Moreover, it is important that we discuss this topic because we see so many good people waste their lives away because they never discovered their gifts or take a wrong turn in life. The reason for this is when the person was a child, there was a weak village support to be given to the parents in order to help raise the child. Due to the world problems that are caused by humans. It is important that we help recreate that village around our children, otherwise, it will be that child you ignored who will grow up to be the thief, the liar, and the person who goes into schools to shoot up innocent children.
As a matter of fact, a counter argument of my topic is that today’s village is dangerous, which I agree with it 100%. The parents who think like this put their children in homeschool to seclude the child from the harms of society. What the parents need to realize is that eventually, the child will fly from its’ nest to come out to the world. So instead of me arguing against it, I will work with them to correct the society our children are being raised in. We should do more with just helping our own children, we need to help his or her friends, their schools, and their neighborhoods, so we do not have to put our children in seclusion.
In like manner, to solve the problems of the village of our times, first, we need to understand the problem. We cannot solve what we don’t understand. The problem of not understanding will create conflicts within ourselves, our family, our communities, and within our world. These problems will eventually come to our doors. No one will be immune to these problems.
So, how did the village start to crumble? In the USA major changes have happened in the society in the last 100 years or so (Slee 264). Some of them were good and some were not so good for the child. “Back in the early ’60s when the feminist Second Wave was new, leading feminists defamed domesticity in an effort to jolt women out of homes. They assumed that the post-war technology advances that had made housework a less time-consuming job wouldn’t prove motivating enough. (Loftis).” When the female started to work more outside the home, that also took away the grandmothers, aunts, nieces, and other female relatives who gave the support to the mother.
Furthermore, with the mother’s role changed, she was no longer the one that only natured the child, but also became the breadwinner for the family. Mothers do not have a lot of support from her extended female relatives with raising her child as they are also pursuing their own education, careers, or have their own family to look after. The village slowly broke away, leaving in most cases the mother alone to raise a child. The village was not the first thing to be destroyed but the family structure was destroyed. Once the family structure was destroyed, which is the fabric of society, then the village started to crumble. There were unrealistic expectations put on mothers. A mother had to have a career to earn money so she can support her family while still being expected to fulfil the needs of her children. More stress was added to her plate in which it brought about mental, physical, and marriage problems.
How about the fathers? The fathers are not around most of the time, so they are not always as involved in raising the child because they probably never had a good father role model when they were young; they just do not know how to be a good father, or making money is more important. Fathers need to realize how important their role is to the child. I have seen a lack of fathers in most of the events I have conducted or attended relating to parenting. The father’s roll also changed when the mother’s rolls changes in the 60s. Fathers became more of a buddy than the authoritarian father (Slee p.264). Before the 60s an idol family was a father and mother who lived with their children.
In a study by a father, Daniel Lee, “he found that 21 out of 24 studies internationally found that fathers’ active involvement with their children made a measurable difference to their children’s behavior, psychological wellbeing, self-esteem, school attitudes and achievement and overall life satisfaction.” Most parents know the basic of parenting. Mothers also have the same issues when it comes to parenting. Alex Penk who is research manager said, “Fathers and mothers can improve their child’s behavior, learning, and happiness – but only if they put in the hours in active involvement” (Penk).
Another issue that started to shake the village was when sex out of marriages became the norm, in which it resulted in unplanned and unwanted children. It was called the Sexual Revolution era. Children were given up to foster homes or adoption, they did not always have a structured home with love and care. “The number of children in the foster-care system has been quietly ticking up after years of decline, from about 397,000 in 2012 to more than 437,000 in 2016, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF).”
What are the recent problems that are destroying the village? Although if a child is a problem child it is always blamed on the parents or teachers, through my experience, it is also the society that takes a big part in raising the child. We should all take responsibility for it as a community. Parents were not prepared for new advancement in technology, new forms of drugs, and other social changes that came with the 21st century. In the past, the focus was in the development of the boy, now it has been shifting and the focus is more on the girl, which is not good because the focus should be equally balanced. Other problems are higher divorce rates and single parenting. No to forget that teachers are overworked and so they do not have the support to help a child prepare for life.
In addition, other issues that shook the village were the messages that the TV, pop culture, and consumerism were giving our children. For example, I had to commute to work from Philadelphia, PA to Newark, Delaware for three years. I was working as a teacher and my children were students at the school. Every day coming back home on highway 95 north there was this huge billboard from the Gentlemen’s Club. It was of a woman almost completed naked. It was in your eyes type of board. My two daughters and my nephew would see this board and one can only imagine what would go through their minds. For the girls it probably spoke to them the message, you must dress less to be seen. For my nephew, it probably belittled the value of a female. Are these the type of values we want our children to learn?
I believe in free speech, but I have one problem with free speech, we forgot that the children are watching and listing. In today’s time, we have very little consideration for how a child process information presented to them before they can even understand it. The child might be in diapers and they see and hear things beyond their comprehension because people want to express themselves. When religion was put behind closed doors and we brought out what happens in a bedroom to the streets, what did those people who made that law thought was going to happen?
One day I was walking in a store with my younger daughter who was probably five years old. As we were walking there were two people who were talking but one decided to use foul language. Did this person ever think what kind of role model he is setting up for my little girl, no! We need to always be aware of when we do anything by having the best interest of the child in mind. This is whether we are making a movie, pop songs, our behavior, and speech, in front of a child. A child cannot be under the parent surveillance 24/7. I know the world cannot be perfect, or the child cannot live in a bubble for the rest of their lives, but the society can try to make our jobs as a parent easier for us. Introducing immoralities too early to a child can be detrimental to the future of a child. I have talked to adults who were introduced to porn, drugs, or violence in their early stages of life and now they live a life of those concepts that they learned too early in life.
To put it differently, the research study was done by Dr. Jonathon A. Gould, that when parents and teachers work together, they can make a huge impact on the student. Looking at the above model he has created for us to see how everyone in society has a role to play to make that positive good possible in the child’s life.
So, now you might agree with me that we need to rebuild the village but where do we start. How can we help make the village around the child stronger? Here is a list of strategies we need to take to bring a positive change to the lives of our children. I have realized these are the things that lack in our communities. Some changes are required on an individual level, some are required by the community, and some are required by the government.
Ways to Help a Child in Your Village:
- Everyone in the community can be a supportive guide to children in one way or another. They can share their skills, time, or financial means to help build the village around the child.
- Parents need to have a longer parent leave when they have a new born child. In Germany mothers goes on leave for three years with a full salary.
- Mandatory Parenting Classes before becoming a parent; Understanding the different parenting styles, child psychology, life of a teen, teaching styles, etc.
- Providing teachers with more support and resources.
- Providing more after school, weekend, and summer activities for children.
- Making Language Art classes mandatory for parents who do not know how to read, speak, and write English.
- Other classes that should be mandatory for parents: Computer/tech/social media classes, and study of contemporary American society.
- Freedom of speech and expression should be reevaluated for the sake of our children. Lawmakers need to understand the amount of harm it is causing children, and, in the process, it is destroying the future of our country.
- We need the media and internet because there is good in it, but the government needs to restrict immoral messages that are given through these media outlet to our children.
In conclusion, the choice is yours to help or not to help. We can make the world great, by rebuilding the Village! When we build a child, we build families, when we build families, we build communities, when we build communities, we build a world of goodness. Just remember that if you neglect the child, they will grow up to burn the village to feel the warmth.
Work Cited
“Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF).” Children’s Bureau | ACF, www.acf.hhs.gov/acyf. Education Week, 7 Mar. 2018, p. 14. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531476293/OVIC u=phil42304&sid=OVIC&xid=d9a7e3db. Accessed 8 Nov. 2018.
Gould, Jonathon A. “Does it Really Take a Village to Raise a Child (or Just a Parent?): An Examination of the Relationship Between the Members of the Residence of a Middle School Student and the Student’s Satisfactions with School.” 2011, pp. 28–38.
“Paul Harvey’s Warning to America – ‘If I Were the Devil.’” Larsen Financial, larsenfinancial.us/2016/09/paul- harveys-warning-to-america-if-i-were-the-devil/.
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